“What is this?” said Aramis, on seeing them arrive.  “Nothing but saddles?”

“Now do you understand?” said Athos.

“My friends, that’s exactly like me!  I retained my harness by instinct.  HOLA, Bazin!  Bring my new saddle and carry it along with those of these gentlemen.”

“And what have you done with your ecclesiastics?” asked d’Artagnan.

“My dear fellow, I invited them to a dinner the next day,” replied Aramis.  “They have some capital wine here—­please to observe that in passing.  I did my best to make them drunk.  Then the curate forbade me to quit my uniform, and the Jesuit entreated me to get him made a Musketeer.”

“Without a thesis?” cried d’Artagnan, “without a thesis?  I demand the suppression of the thesis.”

“Since then,” continued Aramis, “I have lived very agreeably.  I have begun a poem in verses of one syllable.  That is rather difficult, but the merit in all things consists in the difficulty.  The matter is gallant.  I will read you the first canto.  It has four hundred lines, and lasts a minute.”

“My faith, my dear Aramis,” said d’Artagnan, who detested verses almost as much as he did Latin, “add to the merit of the difficulty that of the brevity, and you are sure that your poem will at least have two merits.”

“You will see,” continued Aramis, “that it breathes irreproachable passion.  And so, my friends, we return to Paris?  Bravo!  I am ready.  We are going to rejoin that good fellow, Porthos.  So much the better.  You can’t think how I have missed him, the great simpleton.  To see him so self-satisfied reconciles me with myself.  He would not sell his horse; not for a kingdom!  I think I can see him now, mounted upon his superb animal and seated in his handsome saddle.  I am sure he will look like the Great Mogul!”

They made a halt for an hour to refresh their horses.  Aramis discharged his bill, placed Bazin in the cart with his comrades, and they set forward to join Porthos.

They found him up, less pale than when d’Artagnan left him after his first visit, and seated at a table on which, though he was alone, was spread enough for four persons.  This dinner consisted of meats nicely dressed, choice wines, and superb fruit.

“Ah, pardieu!” said he, rising, “you come in the nick of time, gentlemen.  I was just beginning the soup, and you will dine with me.”

“Oh, oh!” said d’Artagnan, “Mousqueton has not caught these bottles with his lasso.  Besides, here is a piquant Fricandeau and a fillet of beef.”

“I am recruiting myself,” said Porthos, “I am recruiting myself.  Nothing weakens a man more than these devilish strains.  Did you ever suffer from a strain, Athos?”

“Never!  Though I remember, in our affair of the Rue Ferou, I received a sword wound which at the end of fifteen or eighteen days produced the same effect.”